Hallelujah
by Vacancy
Summary: A songfic of snapshots to the tune of Sirius and Lily's developing relationship - or lack thereof - as they grow older. Angst. Mature references.


_A/N: _**This is to 'Hallelujah' by Cohen. I like Buckley's voice more (Oh, god, SO MUCH MORE) but I like this version of lyrics better. :3 Read and enjoy—OH, and review. That too. **

Disclaimer: _Still not JK Rowling (regrettably)_

_Hallelujah_

_Now I've heard there was a secret chord  
That David played, and it pleased the Lord  
But you don't really care for music, do you?_

Had it really been so long ago, that he had sat with her in the common room, the Boyfriends Best Friend, trustworthy enough to leave with the Girlfriend as James was practicing for Quidditch, or he was studying for an exam Lily'd long mastered and Sirius didn't give a damn about? Three long years since graduation, and longer since that night in Head Tower.

Sirius' game was flirting. It was a web of words and compliments and memory, what would set her off and what would make her blush, and with Lily, he was almost relieved that it wasn't any different. James just shook his head tiredly when Sirius and Lily tossed back and forth a few lines of flattery, of charm, and Sirius would chalk up this small victory, but then James would catch Lily up in his arms and kiss her, and he was left with his stockpile of flirting, meaningless words delivered by a girl who had only kissed him like that once.

What had he done that had made her want to kiss him that night? What magic word had he invoked that had made her want him as a substitute? If he'd said something appealing to her once, he must have had repeated it, but the song that he'd sung then that had made her want him had lost it's appeal to her, and he was just another supporting character to Lily and James' romance.

_It goes like this  
The fourth, the fifth  
The minor fall, the major lift  
The baffled king composing Hallelujah  
Hallelujah  
Hallelujah  
Hallelujah  
Hallelujah_

"I can't believe him," Lily said, her eyes sparking dangerously. She was sitting on the floor of the Head Common Room, a half-empty bottle of Firewhiskey laying in the valley in between the hills of her legs. Sirius was standing next to the fire, poking it, trying to make it flare up. "I can't believe he just left for that Quidditch camp and left you and me here. He spends more time with his broomstick than he does with his girlfriend."

"That's Prongsies' way, I suppose," Sirius said vaguely, smiling in satisfaction as the fire cackled and grew. "He just likes his broomstick."

Lily groaned and fell back onto the carpet, unfolding her legs and stretching like a cat.

"More than he _should_."

"Well, there must be a reason you're still with him," Sirius said reasonably. The pain of her choice of James over him still throbbed steadily, but Sirius was no Snape. He moved on, loved her quietly, tried to excuse it away as love for a sister. "I mean, it's not as if you hate the bloody poof."

"Sometimes I do, Sirius," Lily sighed, running absent fingers through her hair. "I mean, there was only once that I was able to love someone completely with no inhibitions, and it was very short."

"Who was it?" he asked, a traitorous satisfaction that she didn't say this love was James' creeping up his heart. Lily just glanced up at him, her smile slight.

"_Very_ short," she emphasized. "And it wouldn't have worked. We kept it secret. Those kinds of relationships never do."

Sirius laughed, a brittle, pained sound.

"You never know until you try, Lilylove," he said, and turned away.

An awful feeling of contentment was growing in him, but he would not let her see it. The perfect love would never be James'. The king of Lily's heart trying to replicate what she could only feel for him. And yet, it hurt him even more, that she felt the same way. It would have been easier to get over it if she had simply seen him as an attractive way to gain a first kiss.

"Sirius?"

Her voice was worried. Like he'd turn around and proclaim his love of her any second now, and throw himself into the fire when he verified it was unrequited.

He turned around with a fake smile: the Black family smile. Courteous, amiable, handsome, careless, utterly realistic unless you looked closely and saw the grimace it so closely resembled.

"Sorry, Lily. Thought the fire was going down."

_Your faith was strong but you needed proof  
You saw her bathing on the roof  
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you  
She tied you  
To a kitchen chair  
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair  
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah_

"Oh, Sirius..."

"Miranda," he answered softly, lacing his fingers loosely through hers. Sirius Black, King of Meaningless Relationships. He could make women beg him for the chastest of kisses, he could make them jump through flaming hoops for the most brotherly of embraces.

The moon shone down through the light cloud cover, the Astronomy tower higher up than any other turf for miles around, and the bluish, ethereal light of the Mistress Moon bathed their faces in soft light. They sat propped up against the wall of the tower, prostrate like dolls, watching with an almost dead stillness the utter quiet of the night, unwilling to disturb it.

He felt, vaguely, the softness of her lips on his cheek, searching for more serious turf, and Sirius complied easily, having lived this scenario so many times before. The careful kiss, mouth on mouth, the sweetest and most cautious of it's kind, until she starts poking you with her tongue or otherwise requesting a move forward, and then play the Concerned Boyfriend—pull away,

"Are you sure you want to do this, Miranda? I mean, we've only been going out for - " It barely took him a second to tally up the days. "A week."

"I'm sure," Miranda said breathlessly, and then they could continue, mouths could open, advances could be made, and then—

"Are you sure you want this?"

"I want this. I want you. Please, Sirius."

"Miranda, I'm not sure..."

"Please!"

"Fine, fine, love."

It never failed to make him smile that even though the one he loved would speak another name when she kissed her boyfriend, this one wanted nothing more than his kiss, that as the only one he wanted told him _No, Sirius, I'm so sorry – it would just never work_, this one begged him to keep trying it.

_Bang!_

The door to the Astronomy Tower burst open, causing Miranda to utter a tiny scream as she detached from Sirius. In a flurry of robes and red hair, Lily Evans came storming outside.

"Get to bed, Miss Cross."

"But-But-But Sirius—"

"But Sirius nothing, get to bed before I report you to McGonagall," Lily said with Head Girl confidence and fire. "I have certain things I need to discuss with Sirius."  
Miranda scrambled up from where she had been sitting on the stone and flew down the stairs to escape the fury that was the terrifying Head Girl, though she cast a look of suspicion and hurt that Sirius had not stuck up for her.

"Honestly, Sirius, demoted to sixth years, are we?" Lily said with that hint of old distaste that she hadn't harbored for him since before she had kissed him, since before she and James had become a couple. He shrugged with the closest replica of casualness he knew at this moment.

"I seem to have dated my way through all the seventh years, actually."

"Oh, you rogue," she said harshly, and then, as Miranda's thudding steps down the staircase faded, and any playact at coldness she might've had dissolved in one wave. She came toward him slowly and slid down the wall next to him, and the next thing he knew she had put her head on his shoulder and her arms around his chest and promptly started sniffling.

"Lily..." he struggled to say anything at all, so confused and happy and concerned at the same time: it was like the emotions were struggling to come out in his words, all at once, and he could barely speak.

"I'm so scared, Sirius," she whispered, and he snapped to attention. These were days when fear was the coin by which most everything was bought, and mostly by Voldemort. Should that slimeball Snape have put her in a bad way with the Dark Lord...

"Lily, are you safe?" He felt he had to ask before he continued. She looked up at him, goggling.

"Safe? Of course I'm safe. I'm just scared...oh, I see. No, it doesn't have anything to do with Lord Voldemort. Just the angst of a teenage girl."

Every muscle in his rather lean body relaxed, and he rested his head upon Lily's.

"What's eating you?"

"James," she said, sniffling. "He keeps – keeps telling me how perfect I am and how beautiful I am and how wonderful I am in every way...I don't feel wonderful or perfect or beautiful...Sirius, I feel like I'm not good enough for him. He thinks I'm all these things that I'm not, and I'm pretending and pretending and pretending and he started talking to me the other day about _marriag__e_—and then my life would be pretend! I am not the girl he thinks I am, Sirius!"

His name fell like a stone into the quiet untouchability of the night so high up in the air. She was sniveling in earnest now, and Sirius clucked at her, using a corner of his robe to dab away the stray saltwater tears rolling down her cheeks.

"You are those things, Lily. You just have such low self esteem you don't realize it."

Her laugh was watery, but just as beautiful as always.

"That's what I like about you, Sirius," she said. "You know me for exactly who I am. You don't pretend like James does...you just take me as I am."

"Oh, Lily," he said. His voice was weary. How the hell did she do this to him without noticing? Did she honestly and truly not know that she had this effect on him?

"Sirius...Do you think James and I really are meant for each other?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because he keeps saying it...but I can't believe him without a second opinion."

"Lily, I'll never be a matchmaker. You'd do better to ask Remus."

"But...I don't trust Remus. I mean, I like him. But I don't trust him. You matter to me, Sirius. You're my boymates best mate. And...I like you a lot."

Her green eyes were looking up at him, wide and trusting, and at this point, he would rather Crucio himself in the foot than answer her.

"Lily - "

"I'm breaking up with James."

"You – you – _what_?"

"I just don't love him. Not like...I love someone else."

She was so beautiful in the moonlight, her hair reflecting silver, her eyes wide and so green, so beautiful, so awful, what she was saying...

"Who?"

He didn't need an answer. Her lips were response enough. She crushed herself to him like she'd only done once before, and the kiss was salted by tears, but it was the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted. His conciousness slipped away, and he kissed her back, not thinking of James at all, or even what he had began to say, just succumbing to this his greatest of wishes. He began to pull her closer to him, but she began to shift. He knew what came next, and he was correct. She pulled away from him.

"Oh, Sirius. I'm not sure I can do this, I'm still going out with him..."

"Please," he begged, his eyes dark. "Oh, please, Lily."

"I don't..."

"Please."

And she put her lips back to his.

Another dirty secret to add to the count of cautious smiles, of guarded words, or glances and touches and all these things that he had wanted to badly to mean more than he made them in his mind—

And the funny thing was, it had been him begging. Lily could have any boy in school on his hands and knees, all except for Sirius, or so she had thought, the one great challenge that she found herself drawn to. But not really a challenge at all, for she took his crown and shattered his throne as king of relationships, and forged herself a new one, that perhaps he could sit beside her on, if she would make the seat wide enough.

"Oh, Lily."

"Sirius..."

"You can't do this."

"I know. I shouldn't have kissed you, not yet - "

"No. You can't break up with James. This is called cold feet. Don't let the cold spread to your heart. You know we can't work. You told me so yourself. School is almost over, and then you can marry James and have your happily ever after, because you are all the things that James says you are, you're just too silly and too scared to see them."

And he held her as she cried, knowing he was right and hating him for it.

_Baby I have been here before  
I know this room, I've walked this floor  
I used to live alone before I knew you.  
I've seen your flag on the marble arch  
Love is not a victory march  
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah_

Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

"These Muggle tellies are wonderful inventions," Sirius said, flicking idly through channels.

"Amazing," Lily concurred, holding the two bowls carefully in her hands as she climed up and jumped lightly over the low back of the sofa and settled down next to Sirius. "And this is ice cream like you've never tasted it before. Artificial and even worse for you than the original. Who could ask for more?" She passed him a bowl, and he sampled it cautiously.

"Oh my god. This is awful and wonderful at the same time."

"Isn't it though?" Lily asked, smiling at him and spooning some of the chocolate ice cream into her mouth. "When is James supposed to be home, do you remember?"

"He's on patrol until nine," Sirius said from memory. "Then I go out."

"I worry about you," Lily sighed. "You're only nineteen. You and my husband out risking your necks every day."

"Oh, don't, Lily," Sirius said. "We're better than the bad guys."

"I know you are," she said, frowning as Sirius snatched the remote away: she'd flicked to one of the soap operas she'd become attached to on her days at home.

"Remind me why I'm not allowed to patrol, again?" she asked, watching the channels flicker by in flashes of color and black.

"You're preggo," Sirius said easily. Lily made a face.

"That's not _proven_," she objected. "Just suspected. I mean, it might just be a bug - "

"Or it might be Sirius Potter in there," he said, patting her flat stomach. She swatted his hand away.

"We're not naming him Sirius, Sirius. People would talk."

"What, that we're sleeping together?" Sirius let out a bark of laughter. "Highly doubtful. You should see what you and James look like together. Glue. On hands."

"Shut up," she muttered, turning pink, but Sirius just grinned, suddenly cavaleir.

He'd been living in the house on Poplar street since fifth year, when he came running to James bleeding and bruised, decided that this was the last he'd have to do with the Black family. After the elder Potters had moved to a seaside home, much more cozy, they had left the house in Godrics Hollow to their son, who had invited Sirius to live with him full-time. And it hadn't been odd, sharing the two-bedroom house with James Potter, because in essence they were the same man. It had been like living alone, only with better company.

Only everything changed when James married Lily that sunny April morning, and she came sweeping in with her scented candles and neatness impulses , and started outlawing leaving socks in the kitchen and Sirius slouching about all day in his pajamas, insisting that they were disgusting and he needed to do 'something constructive'.

Pssh.

He was an attractive male teenager who wasn't in school. It was practically nessescary for him to not do anything all day.

But he liked Lily well enough, she was good company on the days when James was out, and he spoke not a single word to her about the way his heart panged when he walked into a room and she was kissing James, or when they were cuddled up on the couch whispering to each other, and even the one horrific moment when he had happened in on them in bed. They had cast a Silencing Charm on the room and didn't hear him ask 'James, have you seen my...', but trailed off, watching them with some sort of disturbed fascination.

But suddenly it wasn't like living alone, it was like living with a naggy girlfriend, only she didn't like him like that. Or, she did, but she loved James more.

"What will you name it, if you have a kid?"

Lily looked pensive.

"I was thinking for a girl...Melody. Or Hermione. I just like the way it sounds. Harmonious, in a time where nothing is, you know?" she asked, her eyes questioning as she absently lay a hand on her flat stomach.

"And for a boy?" he asked, picking up her hand and laying his head on her stomach, settling her hand on the other side of his head. It was a sign of how close they'd gotten that she merely chuckled, making her stomach produce rather unflattering noises.

"I was thinking Harry."

"Harry Sirius," Sirius said, tasting the words. "Harry Sirius Potter...named for his _god_father, of course."

Lily laughed, flicking his head.

"You're taking a lot of liberties there."

"It's what I do," he said, his head snuggling into the smoothness of her stomach. She giggled at the ticklish feeling and pushed him away, and stroked his soft black hair absently.

"Sirius?"

"Yes?"

"How come you don't have a girlfriend?"

He laughed somewhat disbleivingly, but Lily peered down at him earnestly, like he was a puzzle she needed to crack.

"I mean, you dated your way through about three years worth of girls. How come you don't have a girlfriend now?"

"I...don't know," he said, slightly perturbed. "Why?"

"You worry me sometimes," Lily said, and bent her head over his, giving him a very chaste and very sisterly kiss on his cheek which made his insides convulse anyway.

"Lily," he said, even though he thought he was going to yell at her to stop being so stupid, so naïve of him on force, because he knew she could tell if she wanted to. Lily wasn't dense.

"Lily! Sirius! They let me off early, Frank Longbottom took on my shift."

Lily leapt up from the couch, her smile beatific as she regarded her husband. Sirius was left to lay on the cushions, listening to husband meet wife, when he wished nothing more than to push James out of the house, because no longer was it Lily making it two entities in this house, but the man who had the life he wanted, who had become a different person from the other side of Sirius.

_  
There was a time you let me know  
What's real and going on below  
But now you never show it to me, do you?  
And remember when I moved in you  
The holy dove was moving too  
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah_

Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

"Lily?"

"Mmm?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder. She looked so beautiful, in the moonlight, the silvery glow casting over the bare skin not obscured by bedsheets.

"Lily, is anything wrong?"

She propped herself up on her arm and regarded him curiously.

"Wrong? No, Sirius. Nothing's wrong. Why do you ask?"

"Because...Because you haven't been talking much lately."

"With all due respect, Sirius," she said throatily. "I think you're rather making me wear out my vocal chords, if you get my drift."

"That's not it," he said, not stopping to appreciate the lewd joke. "I mean...do you think this is wrong? What we're doing?"

Her laugh was startled out of her throat.

"This? Sirius, I'm sleeping with you while lawfully wed to another man. What do you think?" This frankness had always surprised Sirius. How could she just come out and say what he had been battling himself for doing so much as thinking it?

"No, I mean like wrong wrong."

She didn't say anything, letting her head drop down onto the pillow. After a few minutes, her leveled breathing told him she was asleep.  
There had been a time when the two of them had been a team opposing James, like the perfect husband and wife, talking, laughing, kissing in the dark where no one could see. But now, Sirius couldnt' help but feel that what happened when James left each morning had become a habit to her, and nothing more. The adrenaline tush of taking the man you loved to bed then waking up and warmly greeting the man you loved a little less but were married to had lessened. It had become a physical relationship only, and the pain that now, her heart once again belonged to James and he was merely a substitute once more was nearly physical.

He let his head hit the pillow, and tried to sleep.

_You say I took the name in vain  
I don't even know the name  
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?  
There's a blaze of light  
In every word  
It doesn't matter which you heard  
The holy or the broken Hallelujah_

Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

"I can't believe it...he's nearly got the Ministry...he's surely got most of the wizards in the country dancing on his strings, he's killed half my friends..."

Lily's eyes were red as she nodded and leaned against the wall.

"He might get James next," she whispered. They were both silent for a moment, absorbing the horror of this possibility.

"No," Sirius said with false surelty. "James is an even better wandsman than I am. He'll be fine out there."

"I want him home with me," she whispered again. "I love him. I'm so scared."

"I'm scared too, Lily - "

"Sirius, I know...I know that we've been doing bad things while he's been out. Sirius, it just has to stop. It doesn't feel right doing this while he's gone. It's like spitting on a grave or putting a Confundus Charm on him then pushing him out there."

He nodded his head silently. He wouldn't pretend he hadn't been expecting this.

"I think I fooled myself into beleiving that I'd made a mistake in marrying James and you were the one for me...that was a convenience lie. I love you like a brother, Sirius."

"You've been doing some pretty sick things with your brother," he said weakly, and she gave an equally weak smile.

"I know. I'm so sorry for any trouble I've caused you but this is how it has to be."

"Trouble? Lily Evans, you silly girl. I love you."

She widened her eyes.

"Not like a sister. And I know you can't requite it, but that's okay. I love you anyway. And I'm not mad at James either. He deserves you, he spoke up first."

"But -"

"Lily, don't flatter yourself. The whole relationship wasn't just you being silly and angsty, I wanted it too. Wouldn't have given you the time of day if I hadn't."

Lily opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head.

"All right, then. I'm glad we...glad we agree."

"Yeah."

They just remained still for a moment, looking at each other, not the hungry, greedy expression they had harbored while they were newly in love, like they simply could not absorb enough of the person opposite them in the time they had alotted, but curiously, as one might a stranger, someone you don't even know anymore.

"So Voldemort - "

"Don't say his name," Lily said wearily, shutting her eyes.

"What?" Sirius said with a disbeleiving chuckle. "Don't tell me you've become one of those superstitous nutters who thinks he's going to swoop out of the sky if you say his name."

"Just don't say it, okay?" Lily snapped. "I don't know why people don't say it, but they don't, and there has to be a basis. Don't go around just tossing it all over."

"I'll do whatever I bloody want, Lily-Evans-Potter," Sirius said, firing up immediately.

"What's your problem, Black?" Lily asked, irritation writ in her voice. "Can't you just do one thing without having to know everything about it for once? Can't you relax?"

"Lily, you just broke up with me! You just broke up with your husbands best friend! I love you, and you broke up with me, now we're back to 'friends'. Don't pretend like I don't have a reason to yell."

"Sirius..."

She turned her face away.

"Why does it even matter?" Sirius asked. "Why? It's not as if you say his name he'll come and hit you with Avada Kedavra for a word."

Lily looked at him with shadows in her eyes.

"You never know what words will warrant your death anymore," she whispered, gathering her gressing gown around her. She looked like a scared child, and Sirius, despire himself, felt very tender towards her.

"Oh, Lily."

"Lily! I'm home! Sirius, they're expecting you down at Hogsmeade in a half-hour."

"Lo, James," Sirius said, not missing that the greeting was for Lily. Lately, James had been coming home with hurt and suspicion in his eyes, and Sirius felt a sort of grim happiness that he would never make him wear that pained expression in his eyes again.

Lily and James, after meeting with a warm embrace and exchanging pleasantries, had seperated, which made Sirius feel like he should talk.

"James," he piped up, and his messy-haired friend looked at him, his eyes so distant it was almost vacant. "I think it's time I find my own place to live, mate."

James brightened.

"Oh, but Sirius, you know you're welcome here anytime, don't you?"

"I am," he demured. "But still, you know, it's you and your wife."

"Well," James said, and he looked sad. "Come by often, won't you?"

"Oh, of course I will, Jamesie," Sirius said happily. "I'll just have a place to sleep and I won't be stuck here all day with your lovely but boring wife."

This seemed to cheer James up considerably, and Sirius could tell him moving back into the grim, old place in which his parents had lived would only be to the good. It would mend a friendship, keep him away from what he could only classify as a bad breakup.

Lily cleared her throat.

"James...I've been wanting to tell you...All of that keep-Lily-from-patrolling-in-case-she's-pregnant stuff..."

James looked at Sirius pleadingly, and his friend shrugged his shoulders, not sure what to say to another one of Lily's 'empowered-woman' rants.

"I guess it's a good thing...I'm pregnant."

James didn't say anything. He just stared at Lily, his mouth wide open in either joy or horror. Lily smiled nervously, a hand on her still impeccably flat stomach. Sirius wondered how she could tell, but he didn't voice it. The silence stretched on. Lily turned to Sirius, beseeching, and he understood at once, making light of the situation as he could always do.

He came forward and put his head on Lily's midriff, hugging her by the waist possesively.

"You'd better name it Sirius," he threatened, glancing back at James, who was starting to smile, his face alight. "Gender not applicable."

_I did my best, it wasn't much  
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch  
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you  
And even though  
It all went wrong  
I'll stand before the Lord of Song  
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah  
_  
He guessed with Lily Evans, his rule was admire from afar.

He had tried to stroke the skin of his goddess, but all it had done was burn him. He had tried to love her, but they loved each other to greatly and she shied away. She had lost all of her emotions for her, so she just let the relationship become physical, then dwindle to nothing. How could she have done that to him? Why wouldn't she have said anything? Would anything have changed if she had?

No, he had long ago decided. Lily Evans was, very simply, never to be his.

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
Hallelujah _

"Halleluja, it's a boy," Sirius whispered, and he didn't envy his best mate now, didn't envy him her love for that would only make her life more difficult, and heaven knew that Lily Evans' life was hard enough as it was.


End file.
